Arafat's cousin killed as Gaza anarchy worsens

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Moussa Ararat, pictured here in 2004, was dragged from his home and
shot.Photo: Reuters

THE assassination of Palestinian strongman Moussa Arafat is the
latest manifestation of lawlessness in the Gaza Strip, where
competing political, clan and criminal factions operate in open
defiance of the police.

A cousin of late Palestinian Authority chairman Yasser Arafat,
Moussa Arafat, 65, was killed early yesterday after a large group
of gunmen attacked his home in Gaza City.

Witnesses said the gunmen dragged Mr Arafat from his house after
a 30-minute gun battle with his bodyguards, and shot him in the
street. His adult son is reported to have been abducted.

A Palestinian militant coalition, the Popular Resistance
Committees, claimed responsibility.

A former head of Palestinian security in Gaza, Mr Arafat made
many enemies within and beyond Fatah. In the 1990s, he enforced a
crackdown on the Islamic militant group Hamas, and recently
acquired a reputation for corruption.

Widely seen as his cousin's Gaza enforcer, Mr Arafat fell from
grace after Yasser Arafat's death last November. Dismissed from his
security role in the Palestinian Authority, he remained an adviser
to new chairman Mahmoud Abbas. Like many Palestinian leaders, he
retained the loyalty of his own clan's gunmen, several of whom were
reportedly injuredyesterday.

The concerted attack on a senior political figure comes amid
signs of mounting anarchy in the Gaza Strip, and came hours after
Palestinian police failed to prevent a group of youths in central
Gaza from marching towards the evacuated Jewish settlement of Neve
Dekalim.

The youths clashed with Israeli troops, who shot one young man
dead and wounded several others.